Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Chris Sanders Sketches: The Lion King

The good news: There are DOZENS of Chris Sanders' Lion King pictures in this post. Character sketches, concept art, storyboards -- you name it, it's in here.

The bad news: Despite doing double-duty as The Lion King's production designer and a member of the story department, I could only find ONE behind-the-scenes anecdote involving Chris Sanders. If you know of any others, please pass them on to me via the comments section. I'll add 'em to this post a.s.a.p.

Now go on, open your eyes wide and INDULGE!

According to the documentary included on The Lion King DVD, the film's creators struggled for quite a while with the scene between Simba and Mufasa's ghost. Directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff eventually assigned it to Chris Sanders, but even after multiple attempts, Sanders could not seem to summon the scene's intended emotion. Then one night at 3 AM, Sanders story boarded it all out one last time. Showing it to Brenda Chapman - the only other person still in the studio at that late hour - he breathed a sigh of relief. "There it was," he recalled years later. "I'd found that little piece of the movie."

Note: The lion's share Most of the art in this post was taken from Christopher Finch's heavy and heavenly book, The Art of The Lion King. I also included images from the wonderful website The Living Lines Library and the deviantART account of curry23.